Scanning printed financial documents into Excel will allow you to edit them just as you would any other Excel file. This is achieved by scanning the document and then using OCR (optical character recognition) methods to convert the scanned image of the text into editable text. Microsoft Office includes software called "Microsoft Office Document Imaging" in addition to Excel itself.

Scan the financial document just as you would scan an image or any other document. Save the scanned image to a picture file as normal.

Open "Microsoft Office Document Imaging" from the "Microsoft Office" folder in the start menu. If you can't find it, you may need to install the feature from your Microsoft Office DVD.

Click on the "File" menu in "Microsoft Office Document Imaging" and click "Open." Browse to the location of the file that you just saved from the scan and double-click on it.

Choose "Standard" in the wizard which appears and then choose "Recognize text using OCR." Open the "View" menu, choose select and drag a box over the area of the scanned financial document that you want to copy before opening the "Edit" menu and clicking "Copy."

Open Microsoft Excel and press "Ctrl-V" to paste the data. It should now appear in Excel as editable data.

About the Author

Based mostly in Norwich, UK, Charles Jackson has been writing articles professionally for the Web since 2007. He has completed college-level English language and English literature studies. Jackson maintains a travel blog and regularly writes for the travel market.